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God would be an atheist...
A rational look at religion, morality, politics and daily life |
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HOME / This Week About GWBAA WEEKLY COLUMNS Previous Print column Why subscribe? Schedule Terms & Rates Subscribe Online column Subscribe BASICS Definitions Atheism Faith God Religion etc Analysis The meaning of life Morality etc NEXT STEPS Buy Discuss Join Read REVIEWS CONTACT Link to this site All Rights Reserved World Copyright © Martin Foreman PREVIOUSLY... Let’s be honest. The Democrats didn’t win the election, the Republican-in-Chief lost it. George W at least has a vision, no matter how awkwardly he articulates it. Make the world more American, make rich Americans richer and ignore the bleating of those whose lives and livelihoods are destroyed in the process. Who won? Others might see inconsistency, but I was proud of these changes. At school I had learnt that if I was intellectually honest, my perspective on the world would change as new information shed light on the old. The swing of the pendulum People whose primary motives are altruistic - driven by outside needs - tend to seek out new information and change their attitudes and opinions accordingly. People who are primarily driven by internal needs tend to seek out information that corroborates their pre-existing beliefs. This has nothing to do with political perspective - both liberals and conservatives can be open or rigid in their thinking. Ann Coulter doesn't bother me If I am lucky, I will spend the next fifty years avoiding disease and disaster and spend my last days with a companion and a few friends in a small town far from violence and relatively untouched by environmental degradation. The world may be falling into chaos around me, but as the Brits once put it, “I’m all right, Jack”. |
Column 104 Seduced into religion Why faith persists By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 792 words Publication date: April 22, 2007 Print publications wishing to syndicate the column should click here. Individual subscribers wishing to receive columns by e-mail should click here. When closely examined, all the claims for God’s existence – personal experience, the miracles, First Cause, apparent holes in evolutionary theory and the stability of the universe and so on – prove to be groundless. A being from another planet or another dimension would be surprised by that statement, given the number of places of worship, the heads bowed in prayer, the books, films and music devoted to God that it would see. Observing the devotion, the ecstasy, the pity and the anger that faith inspires, it might easily conclude religion was real. After some time, however, our visitor would discern the void behind the smoke and mirrors, the sound and the fury. No matter how sincere the belief of preachers and believers, it would see that their faith was built on sand. Why is it, when all the evidence before us points to the single conclusion that God does not exist, that so many people believe in him? The answer lies in that second last paragraph – the “void”. Even the slightest suspicion, that life is no more than birth followed by a series of painful and pleasureable incidents that end in oblivion can be highly disturbing to the human psyche. We are born weak and vulnerable. In our formative years we depend on others for nourishment and safety and life itself. Authority figures dominate our lives. To protect ourselves, we mold our evolving personalities around these figures. We are profoundly affected by their presence or absence and by their beneficial and harmful actions. As we grow older, we place less reliance on the real men and women who surrounded us in childhood. Nevertheless, we remain strongly attracted to the idea of an all-powerful father who rewards the just (ie ourselves) and punishes the unjust (ie those who harm or threaten us). Because that figure does not exist, we are free to create him in whichever image suits us best – aggressive, dominating, kind, loving, distant, close, whatever. Monotheists – Jews, Muslims and Protestants – have to make do with only one God, with each believer manipulating their deity into the personality that comforts them most. Polytheists, including Catholics are luckier, since they have a multitude of god-figures, male and female, each with their own traits – that they can choose from. Not all believers are seduced into religion by the mythical authority figure. Others are less concerned with God than the afterlife. For many who do not want their life to end after seventy or so years, the idea of life after death, no matter how vague, is highly appealing. Not only does it offer a better life than the one we endure now, but it allows us to meet again individuals whom we have loved but who have died. Whether the fire of faith within us is lit by the desire for a father-figure or eternal life, once aflame, it is kept alive by endless propaganda from churches and the media insisting that God exists. When snake-oil is sold day after day, hour after hour on every street corner, recommended by citizens from every walk of society, it is hard for the average man and woman to understand that the concoction they are offered does more harm than good. In some countries and communities, from Pakistan to Poland, Brazil to Israel, religious delusion is widespread. In the United States where presidents, rock stars, athletes and average citizens must refer to the deity regularly, religious hysteria is deeprooted and widespread. At first glance, it seems strange that America, founded on ideals of freedom and liberty of thought, with its progressive history, its world-class universities and scientists, with thinkers and doers on the leading edge of civilization, should be so retrograde when it comes to religion. On reflection, however, it is less surprising. The nation was founded by contrarians – people who rejected, or were rejected by, the majority consensus in the countries they emigrated from. Unwilling to change their religion or to remain mired in poverty, they left their homes to seek a land where they had greater freedom to determine their own fate. This streak of independence and distrust of society persists, thriving in conspiracy theories and the NRA, in home-schooling and maverick politicians, in belief in aliens and a thousand other contrarian positions. Religious faith in America, particularly the faith of televangelists and the newer, creationist sects, continues the tradition of rebelling against mainstream society (science and reason), while comforting the believer with the illusion of God. That does not mean that Americans will always be believers. As religion is increasingly seen as the establishment, increasing numbers of people question the sugar-coated fairy tale. A generation from now, atheism is likely to seem as American as apple pie – and with luck it will be more permanent.
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If God existed, he would... If God existed, he would be an atheist. The number of new Southern Baptists is falling. In 1950, SBers baptized one person for every 19 church members. That ratio dropped to one for every 43 church members in 2003. In October 2005 Southern Baptist Convention president, Bobby Welch, set a goal of 1 million baptisms in the following 12 months. Nine months later, 258 of the 43,465 churches reported they had held 3,494 baptisms. If all churches baptized at the same rate over the twelve month period, the church would have achieved 784,000 new members. Rational minds suspect that the actual number baptized was much lower. Source: here An earlier GWBAA column encouraged British readers to sign an online petition demanding an end to government funding of faith schools. It appears that a similar petition has gathered significantly more signatures. British citizens and residents who want to sign this second petition can find it at http://petitions. pm.gov.uk/faithschools/. The petition also has its own website: www.banfaithschools. org.uk. The current volume of signatories stands at over 12,800, making it the fifteenth most popular petition at the site. This would be great news but a pro-faith schools petition (with 16,715 signatories) is the eleventh most popular petition at the site. Information from the Brights: www.the-brights.net 
God: The Failed Hypothesis How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist "Physicist Victor Stenger has just served up a second course of delectable arguments for the non-existence of God. In his latest book God: The Failed Hypothesis, Stenger runs through the standard rational and biological arguments against any sort of meaningful deity, but he does much more. In plain, easily understood language, Stenger lays out the evidence from cosmology, particle physics and quantum mechanics showing that the universe appears exactly as it should if there is no creator." from the Skeptics Society; read more at www.skeptic.com |
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